Does Wit Preclude Wisdom or Wisdom Wit?

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a great composer and pianist and a noteworthy conductor. He did not have, though, a buoyant personality, but was rather like a bipedal manifestation of gloom. Someone once described him (a tall man) as a six-foot scowl. This did not, however diminish his musical greatness. It obviously will not do, on the other hand, for Christian Scientists to present themselves (or their Church) to the world as staid, sobersided Eeyores (ref. "Winnie-the-Pooh")--though this doesn't imply that all or even most do.

The total (or very nearly total) absence of humor in the Bible and writings of Mary Baker Eddy is understandable. Theology has never been a trove of jocund or jocular fare. That said, one wonders why Christian Science writing needs to be (or seems to many to be) so dully monochromatic, as if an appreciative snicker at some clever turn of phrase would defile Christ Jesus' words and works and Christian Science and consign the unfortunate reader to eternal damnation. Years ago an editor for the periodicals told me (my thumbnail summary of the conversation) that a Monitor columnist, Melvin Maddox (sp?), was the (apparently one-off) standard for levity in the periodicals. He was an excellent writer, but I do not recall ever losing a button or indulging in a prolonged chortle over anything he wrote. It was decidedly buttoned-down hilarity.

I am certainly not advocating that humor should be slathered indiscriminately like ketchup on every verbal morsal or in every C.S. conversation. Most religious subjects don't lend themselves readily to lightheartedness, which certainly needs to be used naturally and judiciously, but in my admittedly limited past dealings with CSPS they seemed to recoil from humor with the same terror and revulsion that the toons in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" had for The Dip.

A chuckle or good laugh at the right moment can help break and dispel the mesmerism and miasma of some of mortal mind's oppressive false beliefs and promote healing. Humor can help provide welcome light to an otherwise cold, dark, and dreary day. A non-Scientist could well get, at times, the impression that in our strait-laced scheme of things we regard risibility to be a first cousin to crapulence or the use of smack or coke. (The puzzling disappearance or erosion of some needful and strengthening standards is another subject and not one ripe for humorus treatment.) It is true humor can be cutting and even caustic, but it need not be. If the basis for a joke is a common human failing or foible, what's the harm? Not many of us would fail to benefit from heeding the gentle prod that a good guffaw at our own expense might provide.